brainpopfandomcom-20200223-history
Honeybees/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby. Moby is dressed as a honeybee. Moby beeps. Tim and Moby are at a honey farm. Both are wearing beekeeping masks. Tim is spreading honey and peanut butter on a piece of bread. TIM: I love peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, Do all bees produce honey? From, Mike. No! There are thousands of bee species, but fewer than a dozen produce honey. The European honeybee is the most common, both in the wild and on honey farms. Animations show European honeybees on a flower, in a hive on a tree, and on a honey farm. TIM: All bees share similar body structures. Images show different bee species. TIM: Divided into three parts: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. A graphic illustrates the division of a bee into the three body parts that Tim describes. The thorax is the middle of the body, where the leg are located, and the abdomen is where the stinger extends from. MOBY: Beep. TIM: An average nest in the wild houses anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 bees. An animation shows a beehive in a tree. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Honeybees are social animals. The individuals can't survive without the colony. The colony has a strict social structure and each bee performs a specific set of tasks. MOBY: Beep. An animation shows several bees in a colony with one large bee. TIM: It depends on the bee's place in the colony. That is, whether it's a worker, a queen, or a drone. Images show a worker bee, a queen bee, and a drone. They all look different from one another in shape and number of stripes. The queen is the largest and does not have stripes. TIM: Of the three, worker bees make up most of the colony's population. An image shows a lone worker bee. TIM: All worker bees are female, and like their title says, they're all about work. An animation shows worker bees in a hive. TIM: They build the nest out of wax secreted from a special gland in their abdomens. An animation illustrates the glands that Tim describes. They are found at the lower, rear part of the worker bee. TIM: The workers sculpt the wax into hexagonal cells in a structure called the comb. An animation shows several bees making a honeycomb. TIM: Bees use these cells to store honey, pollen, and other provisions. They're also used as little nurseries to raise their young. Animations show bees using a comb's cells in the ways that Tim describes. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Pollen and honey are the bees' food. They make honey from a sweet liquid called nectar, which the workers gather from flowers. Workers also gather the flowers' pollen, which bees eat to get protein. An animation shows a bee gathering nectar and pollen from a flower. The pollen sticks to the bee's legs. TIM: As workers go about gathering food, they accidentally pass pollen from flower to flower. This is called pollination, and it's how flowers reproduce. An animation shows bees flying around a field of flowers. TIM: Bees are such efficient pollinators that some farmers actually rent hives to help fertilize their crops. An animation shows a number of bees presenting a farmer with an invoice. TIM: On top of all those responsibilities, workers have to feed the queen and drones, care for the young, and use their stings to protect the nest against invaders. Animations show workers doing the things that Tim describes. TIM: Bees will only sting if provoked. Their stingers are barbed and rip out their organs when they use them. Moby holds a flower and shoos bees away as they approach it. TIM: So worker bees die after they sting. MOBY: Beep. Moby has a dead worker bee in his hand. He points at the dead bee, looking sad. TIM: That's their job. The queen bee works hard too, but she has only one job, laying eggs. An animation shows a queen bee laying several eggs in a comb. One egg goes in each cell of the comb. TIM: She can lay over 1,500 of them in a day. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, she has to. Every colony has only one queen. Her only food is royal jelly, a protein-rich substance secreted by worker bees. An animation shows a queen bee eating royal jelly from a bowl. TIM: Queens are way bigger than workers and drones, and they have smooth stingers. That means they can sting as many times as they want, without dying. An animation shows a queen bee crawling on a comb. Other members of the colony flit around her. TIM: The queen's eggs are fertilized by the only male bees in the hive, drones. An animation shows drones hovering near the queen. TIM: Drones don't do much besides mate with the queen. They don't have stingers, and they can't even feed themselves. An animation shows a drone near some worker bees. TIM: When summer ends, and no more young are needed, worker bees force the drones out of the hive, where they die. An animation shows a worker bee kicking a drone out of the colony. The drone falls to the ground. MOBY: Beep. Moby looks sad. TIM: I know. Sometimes nature is cruel. Want some honey? Tim holds a spoonful of honey to Moby's face, which is still covered by a beekeeping mask. MOBY: Beep. Moby smiles. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Science Transcripts